Ericsson exec displays on altering auto business

Ericsson helps greater than 20 million autos throughout 150 international locations with its automotive portfolio

This week, Ericsson is on the Monetary Occasions’ Way forward for the Automotive convention in London, an occasion the telecom vendor has been attending since 2017. As Åsa Tamsons, the corporate’s senior vp and head of Enterprise Space Applied sciences and New Companies, advised RCR Wi-fi Information, Ericsson’s rising participation within the automotive sector displays a a lot bigger shift for auto OEMs and telecom firms around the globe.

Historically, the automotive business is one the place the bodily product — oftentimes, a automotive — is iconic, and subsequently, such occasions sometimes characteristic an abundance of flashy images. Nevertheless, this 12 months, Tamsons shared that she has but to see a “single image” as a result of apparently, the automotive itself isn’t actually the main target. As an alternative, she mentioned, she has heard plenty of speak of software program and connectivity. “I simply got here off stage, and what I discovered thrilling from listening to all the opposite audio system on stage… [was] what number of occasions the phrase ‘related providers,’ or the phrases ‘cloud’ and ‘connectivity’ [were] talked about,” she mentioned.

“That is telling. The truth that the entire business…  is speaking about related providers, and easy methods to safe a constant and seamless expertise of managing the product,” she continued. “That makes it very easy for [Ericsson] to be related.”

Whereas Ericsson has solely attended FT’s convention for the previous 5 years or so, the corporate’s automotive journey actually started 15 years in the past, in keeping with Tamsons, as a result of that’s when it first kicked off 5G analysis.

“When the analysis workforce began 5G growth, there was a concentrate on enterprises [and] industries as a result of they weren’t utilizing mobile as a part of their connectivity spine,” she defined. In consequence, issues like ultra-low latency, resilience and superior safety features — all components which might be important in an industrial surroundings — have been central to 5G’s growth from the very starting.

These components, after all, are additionally necessary for automotive related providers; thus, the telecom and auto industries got here collectively.  

“Ten years in the past, we began to attach plenty of automotive providers… primarily with LTE and IoT,” Tamsons mentioned. “We [are now] creating a related car platform to help automotive OEMs to launch software program providers and app enablement for functions which might be utilizing connectivity and cloud.”

At present, Ericsson helps greater than 20 million autos throughout 150 international locations with its automotive portfolio. And simply as firms like Ericsson should regulate to the brand new function that connectivity is enjoying within the automotive business, so too should the auto makers. In line with Tamsons, extra automotive OEMs at the moment have gotten software program firms, with {hardware} remaining a important element, as effectively.

“Each are extraordinarily necessary as a result of the {hardware} must be secure [and] safe. That doesn’t go away. However now you will have that and the software program, so that you see a giant shift within the expertise that it’s worthwhile to appeal to,” she mentioned.

Volvo, Audi and Toyota are simply a number of the long-established auto OEMs which have acknowledged the significance of connectivity in automobiles and the ecosystem required to help related autos.

As this transition unfolds, challenges round scale and the necessity for collaboration have emerged, and Ericsson is hoping to deal with a few of these ache factors. On the subject of scale, Tamsons mentioned she is satisfied that cloud connectivity and software program providers should depend on international normal stacks — it’s simply too costly and tough to develop a brand new working system for every OEM. Moreover, Ericsson is partnering with service suppliers around the globe to simplify the administration of connectivity and cloud orchestration for these auto OEMs and extra simply expose APIs that use connectivity in a standardized approach.

Tamsons signaled that there will probably be extra to see from Ericsson’s foray into the automotive ecosystem: “You’ll see us at increasingly of a majority of these occasions,” she mentioned.